TACO Run
Chapter 21
Therion's stomach grumbled at him silently, and he told it to shut up. He'd walked until the cloud-hidden sun sank low in the western sky, and if he'd been anyone else, he'd probably be completely lost in the confusing mess of inner-city streets and alleys that made up this new area. As it was, he could probably retrace his steps as far back as that huge bridge, but he wasn't going to be crossing that again.
There hadn't been any more incidents, gods be thanked—it seemed like the rain was discouraging stupidity somehow. Or maybe most of this place's absurdity and freakishness had been used up by that trio earlier.
What with the rain, though, street-vendors were in short supply. A few sold food out of open-fronted buildings which had a counter in place of a front wall, but that setup meant that the food wasn't in reach of the street until they handed it out, making it not worth the effort of stealing. Therion instead sought out another tavern, this one a much more open setup than the first one he'd seen, with bright lights and a welcoming atmosphere, and a perky young waitress in a blue top and white apron bustling between the tables. Her brown hair was pulled back and covered by a white kerchief, and she greeted him with a bright smile as he opened the weird sliding door.
When he just blinked at her, she held out one hand sideways in a kind of 'if you'll follow me' gesture, tucking her serving tray against her apron's front with the other arm.
Therion followed, bemused, and let her guide him to one of the small tables near the back of the room. He'd prefer a spot at the bar, usually, but it was currently full up, with an elderly man in what would have been Therion's preferred far left seat. The small table was meant for two at most, and would let him put his back to a wall without backing himself into a corner, so it was an acceptable alternative. Once he'd sat down, the waitress said something else, and set down a long, thin booklet thing bound with some kind of not-leather material, bowed slightly to him, and bustled off to start filling other orders.
Therion watched for a while, before cautiously opening the booklet. The inside had a list of what he assumed was what they served here, helpfully with both prices and pictures. Not that he could read the prices, but he could compare them to the symbols that he assumed were numbers on the coins and paper-cloth currency he had tucked about his person.
Most of the food looked completely unfamiliar, but Therion did recognize a kind of weird vegetable-stew-looking dish that'd probably cut through the chill of the early spring rain.
He waited until the waitress was looking his way, and then raised a hand for her to come over. Once she was close enough, he held up one finger and tapped the picture of the stew, before making a tipping-the-cup gesture to indicate a desire for an ale as well.
Hopefully they'd default to real ale here, instead of the weird not-ale the other tavern had assumed he'd want.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and Therion gave the tall glass tankard the waitress brought—what was with this country and glass?—a dissatisfied look, before sighing internally and accepting it. The stew arrived not long after, and Therion picked up the wooden spoon—at least that was familiar—to scoop up the first bite.
Warm. Bordering on hot, and he had to take a gulp of the not-ale to keep from burning his tongue, but even that one bite sent warmth soaking into his blood and bones, peeling away the first layer of damp chill.
Therion lingered over his meal, using the time to warm up all the way and watch the other patrons through the rim of his glass tankard. Two young men—one with gingery red hair—were deep in their cups, celebrating something from the flushed faces and big smiles they had on. He made a note of where their money was kept, and turned back to his stew.
He was just finishing up when another plate was set on the table in front of him.
Therion stared at it. It was a long, thin, rectangular plate, with a row of sliced cucumbers laid out on it elegantly. When he looked up at the waitress, she just smiled and said "saavisu", before bustling off and leaving him baffled behind her.
Therion prodded the cucumbers warily with the tiny, delicate fork he'd been left. From the smell, they'd been pickled in some kind of brine, but not for so long that they'd shriveled up or changed color. He tried one cautiously, ready to spit out the tiny bite if he had to, and was pleasantly surprised to find he didn't hate it. It was crisp and salty and just a little bit sour, but not in a way he disliked, and it went with the not-ale a lot better than it would have with the fruity meads and nutty ales back in Orsterra. Maybe that's why they drink this cold, fizzy yellow stuff, he mused absently. There's a lot of salty food to go with it around here.
Was it like the Coastlands, then? He had seen a lot of fish dishes among what the other patrons were eating.
Therion worked his way slowly through the pickled cucumbers and the last of his not-ale, before digging out what he'd calculated to be the appropriate amount of money and laying it on the table, coins atop paper currency to keep it from being blown away. As he wove his way through the tables towards the door, he let his fingers dip into pockets and purses, making sure to target people distracted by food or drink or chatter. One particularly inebriated woman donated a delicate silver bracelet strung with tiny decorations that looked like they might be charms of some kind—he'd get a second opinion from Cyrus once he found the damn scholar, but even if they weren't enchanted, they'd be worth a good number of leaves.
He was almost to the exit, and had relieved the over-happy redheaded man of his money, when the waitress' voice called out to him.
Therion paused, and cursed himself mentally for doing so. He hadn't spoken to her or anyone else; he could easily have passed for a deaf-mute, and pretended not to hear her as he left. He didn't know if he'd screwed up the price of his meal—he had no idea what the price of the pickled cucumbers he hadn't ordered was—but now that he'd reacted to her call, he had to deal with the consequences.
The waitress hurried up to him, looking relieved, and held out one clenched fist as if she wanted to give him something.
Warily, Therion held out his own hand palm-up, and blinked when the waitress dropped one of the bills he'd left for her in it. Apparently he'd managed to overpay by enough that she actually felt guilty about it.
Nodding acknowledgement to the waitress, he tucked the bill back into one of his many hiding-places and turned to leave again.
The waitress called out what sounded like a farewell, but Therion didn't acknowledge it this time, just reaching forward to slide the weird door open.
It opened before he could even touch it, and a dark figure filled the doorway.
Tall, was Therion's first thought, as he froze in place. The thing in the doorway was as tall as Olberic, maybe even a finger or two taller, and while not quite as broad or powerfully built, was still obviously muscled enough to give anyone pause. It was mostly humanoid in outline, but its skin was a glossy, slick-looking black like ink, and its head was shaped like that of one of the blunt-nosed predatory porpoises that plied the waters of the western sea, according to Cyrus and the stories Tressa'd passed on from Captain Lyon, complete with curved dorsal fin. Except that those stories had the porpoises colored a rippling blue-grey, and didn't say anything about a snow-white chin and throat. Or claw-tipped hands powerful enough to snap a thief's wrist like kindling. Or enormous, canted eyes that looked like they wanted to watch you suffer as it devoured your entrails while you still lived.
Therion absolutely did not piss himself a little when those monstrous, white-ringed and red-pupiled eyes rolled downward to focus on him.
That deep maw opened up to reveal a row of very sharp teeth, and words rolled out in the strange local language.
Therion just stared, limbs frozen. The words had sounded almost… apologetic?
The humanoid murder-porpoise monster thing shifted, head ducking a little as it backed up a step, turning just a little sideways so as to no longer be blocking the doorway.
Therion's eyes didn't shift away from the porpoise-monster, but his hands clenched beneath his cloak. Tossing a quick prayer to Aeber, he darted through the opening he'd been given and skittered down the street, sweat and rain-water rolling down the back of his neck. His pulse pounded in his ears as he ducked into the first alley he found, grabbing the lowest rung of a nearby ladder on sheer instinct and swarming up it to roll onto the dirty, gravel-covered roof of the nearest building.
Once there, he huddled in the lee of what was probably a rooftop shed of some kind, breaths hissing sharp but quiet through clenched teeth, listening for the sounds of pursuit.
Nothing.
The porpoise-monster hadn't given chase, so either he'd been too quick for it to bother, or it hadn't had any intention of hunting him in the first place.
Therion cursed under his breath, slamming the back of his wrist over his eyes to hide the way his hands still shook. He was in the middle of a gods-damned city, none of the tavern patrons had screamed when that porpoise-monster thing filled the doorway, it had been mostly humanoid, and even wearing clothes—a sturdy-looking short-sleeved vest and white shirt over durable trousers and actual shoes.
The monstrous races might wear approximations of human-style clothing, pried off of the corpses of their fallen victims or looted from travelers who'd met with an unfortunate end. But they never, ever wore shoes.
Which meant that the porpoise-monster thing hadn't been a monster at all, but just another weird local who looked like a monster. Which meant Therion had panicked over nothing, tension setting his shoulders screaming and turning his guts to water for no gods-damned reason, and he hated that.
Therion hissed out another curse, and shoved himself to his feet. He wanted nothing more than a mug of mead right now, preferably in the company of people that actually looked human and made sense when they talked.
But he didn't have that, and no way was he slinking back to that tavern again for another drink, not after that embarrassing exit.
So it was back to finding a new temporary base, where he could hopefully dry off, and boil some rainwater in his new kettle. Let it cool overnight, and he'd have safe drinking water in the morning.
It was long past dark and the rain had stopped completely by the time Therion found a new place to bed down. It had been a tavern once, from the look of things, but it was impossible to tell if it had been abandoned due to damage, or damaged due to neglect after being abandoned.
Regardless of the reasoning, it was relatively dry and sheltered, and Therion could easily bed down behind the bar without anyone being the wiser. It had long since been looted of any valuables, too, so he doubted anyone else would bother trying to break in.
It'd do. At this point, that was all he was asking for.
At least the wind hadn't been too bad. He'd expected the tall buildings to channel the wind like rivers, driving the rain sideways and ripping the rain-shade out of his hands once he was among them again, instead of atop the bridge. That was how the Cliftlands worked, when they had storms, and these stupid buildings were cliff-tall.
The winds weren't too bad, though. Maybe the buildings acted like a wind-break instead.
Therion shivered anyway. Rain-shade or not, he'd been out tromping around for hours in the rain, and he'd gotten wet running from that porpoise-monster person, since he hadn't remembered his rain-shade at the time. He wasn't soaked to the skin, but his outerwear was thoroughly wetted and his trousers in particular had mud and rainwater splashed almost up to his hips, from passing carriages going through deep puddles.
Therion stripped off his outerwear, shirt, and trousers, squeezing out the worst of the wet and brushing off what mud he could. This tavern didn't have a communal fireplace—none of them had, now that he thought about it—and a search of the kitchen showed that the oven was too damaged to start a fire in. The big, deep washbasin was still intact, however, so Therion gathered up bits of broken furniture and other burnables, and started a small blaze there that'd take the chill off and dry his clothes faster.
More exploration let him find the privies—also badly damaged—and a small room with a broken-down settee and table that was probably where the staff had eaten, when the tavern had been open. The settee would make a better bed than the floor, and as a bonus, it looked like there weren't any lice infesting it or rats who'd used its stuffing as a burrow.
Therion liked his fingers and toes, thanks, and lice carried disease. Just because he knew how to get rid of them didn't mean he ever wanted to deal with them in the first place, if he didn't have to. Thankfully, this place had been abandoned long enough that any lice it'd had were long starved out, with no warm bodies to munch on.
Cyrus had always fretted about lice while they were travelling together, inspecting any inn's rooms with a critical eye for the little bugs before letting them bed down for the night, and wearing lavender scent to keep them away. Alfyn had also made half-decent coin selling a solution that killed lice a couple of times, out of concentrated grain-spirits and menth oil.
Personally, Therion hated the strong stink that came from the lice-killing solution. It ached at his nose and forehead like a hangover he hadn't even gotten drunk to suffer from, and it clung to clothes and skin for hours, even days afterwards. Cyrus' lavender might smell flowery and posh, but at least it didn't give him a headache.
Therion preferred not to have much scent at all, if possible. Or at least, not one everyone he got near would notice.
Spreading his clothes out near the fire in the kitchen's washbasin let them dry out relatively quickly, and he used the same fire to heat up his stolen tea kettle. He managed to find a few heavy-bottomed cups made out of—shockingly—something that was not glass. It wasn't wood or metal either, or even pewter, but it wasn't glass, and it was easy enough to clean with boiling water from his kettle.
He probably ought to wash his clothes, too, but while he did have something he could change into, it'd stand out way too much if he was forced to flee in the middle of the night for some reason. Once he'd gotten a better handle on the local area, stayed here a night or two without incident, so he'd know if or when he could afford the risk… then he'd wash the mud and grime out fully.
For now, though, his shirt was dry enough to put back on, as were his trousers. His cloak and scarf were still wet, though, so he left them on the counter, made sure there was no way the fire could spread while he wasn't watching it, and made his way back to the staff room to get some sleep.
A/N: The tavern Therion's gone to this time is Izakaya Nobu, from the anime Isekai Izakaya, albeit without the otherworldly shenanigans. "Saavisu" is the transliteration of the word 'service' into Japanese, and is used to indicate a freebie restaurants or stores might give out to first-time customers. The equivalent of 'on the house'. And the scary guy he ran into? Sakamata Kuugo, AKA Gang Orca, a top-tier Hero who specializes in close combat and has a reputation as the 'number 3 Hero-who-looks-like-a-Villain'.
A/N: While head lice don't carry disease, body lice do, and those are what Therion is referring to. DIY lice repellents do often contain lavender essence, as well as peppermint and tea tree oil, so that's the logic behind that. Oh, and 'menth', which has been mentioned a couple of times in this story, is basically an Orsterran version of mint.